Welcome to Santarchy, the original resource for global Santacon events.

Each December Santas visit cities around the world, engaging in a bit of Santarchy as part of the annual Santacon events.

It all started back in 1994 when several dozen Cheap Suit Santas paid a visit to downtown San Francisco for a night of Kringle Kaos organized by the Cacophony Society. Things have reached Critical Xmas and Santarchy is now a global phenomenon.

Ahead of July’s Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, much was made of the fact that the Kremlin had gone so far as to hire a U.S. PR firm to tidy up its image. That turns out to have been small potatoes. On Sunday, 70,000 activists from the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi descended on the city in Santa suits and snow princess costumes, the best example, to date, of how just farcical the government’s image-making can get.

The parade of Grandfather Frosts appears to have been aimed at diverting attention from two other rallies — a Saturday event organized by The Other Russia, a liberal coalition, and a Sunday gathering honoring journalists slain in Russia since 1991. That Nashi billed its march as a 65th-anniversary commemoration of the Battle of Moscow rang hollow, given that the battle ended Dec. 5, almost two weeks before Saturday’s “anniversary.”